Kerslyn’s Comfort Zone

For many decades, holiday lights hadn’t changed all that much.  Sure, you could choose between larger and smaller bulb types, lights in various colors, and more, but there wasn’t a foundational difference on a level that made choosing one type over another all that much better or worse.  In recent years, however, holiday LED lights  have become quite prolific, used by many homeowners for a standout, unique look.  If you’re struggling to decide between hauling out your old incandescent holiday lights or stringing up some new LED ones after a quick visit to a department or online store, consider the tips below that weigh the pros and cons of the LED version.

Appearance
If you’re looking for something ultramodern, bold, and almost magically otherworldly, holiday LED lights may be the way to go.  Each miniature LED is highly luminescent, and LEDs offer brighter, more vivid colors than the tamer versions offered by incandescent bulbs.  For some, the extra luminosity may be a turn-off, as they’d rather stick to more muted colors.  But if you want lights that really pop and make your whole house or Christmas tree glow, LEDs are much more noticeable than conventional holiday lights.

Ease of Use
LED and incandescent holiday light strings are pretty much designed the same way, and neither requires any extra effort to use.  LEDs do maintain their efficiency no matter their bulb shape, so that’s a benefit of picking a vast array of different bulb types, but incandescent versions have more variety at this point (because they’ve been around for so much longer).  So this category is a toss-up, because you really can go either way.

Costs
Here’s where things get interesting.  In terms of initial costs, LED lights are more expensive and therefore it would seem like an easy choice to choose incandescent ones.  But cost isn’t only about the purchase price.  Holiday lights can be a huge drain on energy, and that’s where LEDs start to pull ahead.  An incandescent bulb wastes 90% of the energy it receives producing heat, something that isn’t the case with this new light type.  Plus, your overall energy costs can be reduced by 5x or more using LEDs.  If you lived in New York, for instance, you spend an average of 21 cents per kWh on energy.  For each strand of 100 lights at .008 kW lit up for the entire month of December from the 1st to 25th (600 hours), you’ll end up spending $1.01 (.008 kW x 21 cents x 600 hr).  For incandescent versions, you’d spend just short of 5x that amount ($5.04) for each strand of 100 lights, and most people use dozens of these strands, if not more.  So over the course of a few years, your LED lights will more than pay for themselves.  And the best part is, they last multiple lifetimes the amount that incandescent holiday lights typically survive.